


Arise, Arise, Arise

by Leidolette



Category: Much Ado About Nothing - Shakespeare
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Pollen that puts one in a deep sleep that can only be broken by true love's kiss, True Love's Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 10:54:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20581340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leidolette/pseuds/Leidolette
Summary: When Beatrice is cast into an unnatural sleep by the pollen of a strange plant, Benedick takes upon himself the absurd task of waking her again.





	Arise, Arise, Arise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [defenestratingreason](https://archiveofourown.org/users/defenestratingreason/gifts).

> Defenestratingreason, it was an absolute pleasure to write for you. Thanks for the abundance of prompts!

It was only after the first jokes and barbs were traded between host and company on arrival that Leonato noticed the set of chests bore by two footmen following after the prince's entourage, and asked about their contents.

"You must must be of the strain who loves the sting of the thorn, if you gladly welcome our rascally troupe into your house," Don Pedro said, receiving the expected laugh from Leonato. "But, doubt not, it is not our design to leave your larder or your coffers entirely empty,"

"Prizes of war," Claudio explained, not wishing to appear a braggart, but neither willing to let the opportunity pass to remind Hero's father of his share of the valor and riches he'd won in the conflict.

Leonato watched as the prince's men unpacked the spoils, which were many and varied. There were strings of pearls, bottles of wine, exotic plants, and unknown perfumes. A fur-trimmed coat about his size particularly caught Leonato's attention.

"Good company and friends be the spoils of a wealthy man, and I see'st that you hath most kindly brought yourselves!" Leonato said. "Your treasures of war shall line mine halls, but let Peace be the master under this roof tonight. And Peace is a most jubilant lord who bid me lead you to my table where waits fresh meat and aged wine." Leonato's speech was met with good cheer all around.

"Display these about the house so that we might see them," Leonato directed a servant. The whole merry group then left the courtyard for Leonato's hall so that the travelers could take refreshments. The servants were left to place a plated helm here, a necklace there--

\--and a lovely flower right out in the open.

* * *

Despite the warm initial meeting shared by Leonato's household and the Prince's retinue, the the nature of human beings tend to absurdity, so it wasn't many days after arriving that Benedick was working himself up into a fit of righteous words and language that was highly colorful, even for him.

"O God, sir, here’s a dish I love not. I cannot endure my lady tongue!" Benedick finally finished, and began to storm out of the room. _This will show Beatrice,_ he thought darkly. What it exactly it was supposed to show her, he wasn't entirely sure. Perhaps that he was a proud man, no fool, and he wouldn't suffer her abuse unto eternity -- yes that was it. In any case, he knew that couldn't bear to be in a room with Lady Beatrice a moment longer.

But Benedick's nicely dramatic exit was ruined by Beatrice (of course) when she turned to follow his movements out of the room, and in the process jostled the exotic potted flower brought in with the war prizes and attractively placed on a small table by the door.

"Signior Benedick," she said as her elbow absently brushed across the blossom of the plant. "Shall you not--"

A puff of silver from the flower, like a tiny, exploding star, interrupted Beatrice. Shining pollen scattered across Beatrice's face like a spray of freckles.

Beatrice's face screwed up into something that was well and truly ridiculous for a split-second before she sneezed and -- to Benedick's complete surprise -- toppled directly backwards.

Never let it be said that Benedick did not possess a soldier's quick reflexes, because his arms were around Beatrice before she even got close to the ground. Stunned, Benedick looked down into her face as he held her against his chest. It was as if Beatrice was in the midst of the most peaceful sleep a creature of this earth had ever had ever experienced. Her eyes were closed and her brow unfurrowed; her limbs loose in his grip. He might have joked that he could hardly recognize her, caught in the grip of such serenity, but now was certainly not the time.

Benedick waited for Beatrice to awake and make sport at the flabbergasted face that even he knew he wore. She did not.

"Lady Beatrice?" He shook her gently in his arms. Still, she did not wake. And, as her friends and family rushed to her side in alarm and lifted her away to the sick bed -- away from him -- the possibility that Beatrice might never wake again settled into Benedick's bones like an infection.

The household was all in an uproar the following days. Family wept, doors slammed. Doctors were sent for, then dismissed. Priests were sent for, then dismissed in a slightly more respectful manner. Benedick was not so surprised to discover that, despite all this hubbub, the house felt far quieter without the presence of Lady Beatrice.

It was certainly slightly emptier, and not just by Beatrice's absence. Don John had fled in the first night of the commotion, along with two of his compatriots. The prince had immediately dispatched a troop of men to bring him into custody. Benedick had known at the onset that Don John must be connected to this mischief somehow, even he did not know the particulars. Because god loves children and fools, it was the ridiculous Dogberry who uncovered the truth of the matter, through no merit of his own. It was a piece of god's own luck that a guard stumbled upon Don John's man Borachio deep in his cups. When told there was a woman who lied as still as those that are entombed, the scoundrel had confessed all: from the beginning, Don John had recognized the Suitor's Amaranth for what it was, and insisted the flower be taken as part of their spoils of war. His aim was to cause strife and misery among the prince's allies, for Don Jon acted only as a bitter man unhappy with life, he cared not who suffered the blow.

Benedick himself was in something of a strange position. He was not kinsman to Beatrice, nor could he even call himself a friend to the Lady without a paragraph's worth of qualifiers. He found himself drifting around the grounds, or lurking near the corridor that led to Beatrice's chambers, waiting for some happy change of situation that in his heart he did not expect would come.

It was due only to this lucky proximity that Benedick was able to slip in with the small group that entered with Friar Frances. The Friar had been away all this last week, out ministering to the needs of a country family, and he was just now being informed of the situation in Leonato's house.

Benedick watched from his place of relative anonymity at the back of the room as Friar Frances was shown to Beatrice's bed, where she had been ensconced in blankets and pillows all this last week, never stirring. The Friar made appropriate noises of sympathy, held her wrist, and lifted a mirror to her mouth. Finally, the friar asked to see the flower they claim caused this. Leonato assented, and arranged for a servant to fetch it.

When the servant returned, he was garbed in many layers, as if it were the dead of winter on a mountain peak, instead of Leonato's bright, summery villa, and translucent gauze covered his mouth and nose. The plant itself was carried in on a tray covered with a glass case. Friar Frances inspected the flower though the protective shield.

"Ah, the Suitor's Amaranth," the priest said when the plant was presented to him. "This sad vine hath some measure of fame in those lands far from here."

"So, the beast has a name," Benedick said. "Does this mean that it can be countered?"

"It is so, my lord, it is so. And, in the manner of all fearsome beasts, the tenderest touch of free affection strikes against it a blow most mortal, while a whole company of swords and bows must flake to dust in comparison."

"What mean you by that, good Friar?" Leonato pressed.

"The sleeper can only be woken by true love's kiss," the Friar said.

Benedick snorted, and thought that there might be some noise of derision from Beatrice, because the Beatrice he knew certainly couldn't let such outrageous sentiment pass unanswered. But there was nothing, and the form on the bed was silent. Whatever flicker of amusement he'd felt disappeared.

"Cruel circumstance to force me utter such indelicate words: know any who might have the kind power to wake my niece?" Leonato asked those assembled.

The continued silence of the room told the tale. Benedick shifted where he stood.

"Oh, let my cousin's tongue be twice cursed for its bitterness, though this be only the first time I have ever truly wished it so!" Hero cried. "To speak the part of an honest lady, I've oft admired the wit of my cousin. But if her tongue be the thing that has shrouded her goodness and merry temper from the gaze of those that would fain offered up a heart, I would rather that it had fled from her mouth an age hence."

"It is most seemly for a lady not to engage her deeper affections until she is betrothed, unhappy as this end be today," Leonato said.

Though she stayed silent, Hero did not appear to completely agree with her father's opinion on female decorum, and Benedick could not say he did as well. Nor could he so quickly dismiss the idea that Beatrice did not have some love-lorn, would-be suitor waiting on her notice, and perfectly able to break this enchantment.

Had he not always thought the lady was pleasing fair? And much full of goodly wit as well? When loosed, her barbs were neither pleasing nor goodly, but she most often preferred good-natured sport to attack when dealing with the friendly and vulnerable, as he assumed these imaginary suitors must be. Benedick had seen many a man take a more ridiculous wife than Beatrice.

Don Pedro stepped forward. "Leonato," said the prince, authority in his voice, but also a hand held up to placate. "Your niece and I have passed no words of romance between us, nor any deeds that fit the shape of love poetry. But, come these last days, I've begun to regard her with the first signs of affection. What say you, Signior Leonato? May I make an attempt to wake the sleeper?"

Benedick was shocked. Yes, he'd just been thinking that Beatrice was as worthy of love as any other woman (and more than a good many, even), but -- Don Pedro? His friend? Benedick had _never_ detected any special regard from that corner. What was the prince playing at?

Leonato, too, appeared surprised. Benedick suspected the matter of improper suitors now seemed quite different when it was a prince who was offering. Leonato nodded his assent.

Without too much ado, Don John leaned over her bed and kissed Beatrice. Benedick's heart kicked into overdrive as a number of conflicting emotions clashed in his chest. _Would Beatrice wake? Was it in Don Pedro's power to wake her?_

It was all an anti-climax, though, for when the prince straightened back to his full height, Beatrice slept on, as if nothing had happened.

"My apologies Leonato. It appears that the authority and affection of a prince hath no power over the realm of true love."

Leonato nodded graciously. "No such words are needed, my prince."

With the exception of Hero, who stayed with her cousin, the company exited the room and reconvened in the courtyard, where wine and fruit were supplied by servants. The refreshments were lovely, and the weather fine, but spirits were exceedingly low. People clustered in twos and threes, talking quietly with solemn countenances.

_This hath the seeming of a wake,_ Benedick thought miserably while sipping his wine. Across from him, the prince delivered an abridged report of the day's events to Claudio. Claudio, ever the brave, and now, apparently, quite the romantic, fancifully suggested a city-wide search for the hidden suitor who must be Beatrice's true love. Or perhaps a campaign to the edges of the known map in search of an alternate cure. Claudio volunteered to lead it -- all for Lady Hero's favor, of course.

No one asked anything of Benedick. And why should they? What was he to Beatrice? Just a fool, perhaps, if the lady was awake to answer the question herself. What could he do? The prince had already failed.

An old memory came to him from years in the past. Beatrice laughing full-throated and lovely at something he'd said, a quip of her own already forming on her tongue.

What could he do?

Only what he could do.

* * *

Benedick didn't slip into Beatrice's room under the cover of night. He wasn't that crass, or that cliche -- it was early evening, at most. The smell of the cooking evening meal had just begun to slip into the great hall, which he'd just left.

Hero looked up from the papers collected in her lap when he entered. He expected shock, he expected protestations of the impropriety of his presence, he expected to have to plead his case. Instead, she just looked tired. "Good e'ening, Signior Benedick," was all that she said from her place at Beatrice's bedside.

"Good e'ening, Lady Hero. How doth your cousin?" Benedick said quietly.

"Unchanged, sir, from when we last met several hours past. And unchanged still from the very second she first fell these seven days past. And now this learned friar comes to say that she will be unchanged for all the days that will come to pass."

"Ah," he said, past the lump in his throat. He cast his eye about the room for something to look at besides Beatrice's too still face, or Hero's too expressive one. He landed on the papers in Hero's hands. Even from here he could make out the shape of Beatrice's writing upon them.

"Lady Beatrice's private papers? My lady, you mayhaps found the surest way to rouse your cousin. For the Lady Beatrice I know would surely leap from bed, cry 'fie! fie!,' and give you a merry chase the live long year if she knew you were in among her diary and correspondence."

Hero gave a muted laugh. "It is all for the lady's own benefit! I look to see that my cousin does not hide some secret love in her desk drawers. And, think you not that I should flee in soul-terror from Lady Beatrice's fearsome words. In this way a maiden might have more courage than a knight, for we ladies live at each other's elbows every day, and know that often words are just as shuttlecocks to be batted to and fro, with as much significance." Hero said the words lightly, sweetly, then paused, considering. "I think you understand as well, signior."

Benedick looked at Hero and, perhaps for the first time, noted her. For all her mildness, she truly was kin of Beatrice.

"I would fain have an audience with Lady Beatrice. Do you grant such, Lady Hero?" Benedick waited with bated breath. This was all wrong -- he was supposed to be asking Leonato; he was not supposed to be here alone at all.

"Yea, I do." Hero didn't seem to have any misgivings. Perhaps she was too tired tonight to be the perfect daughter, or too worried to care. In any case, she straightened the pile of papers in her hands and left for the adjoining sitting room, leaving him alone with Beatrice. Benedick approached the still form in the bed. It hardly seemed like Beatrice at all.

"Many vices would I fain lay at your feet, Lady Beatrice, but never before would I have supposed you to be a slugabed; you always did love to put the lie to my expectations." A weak joke. But then, his wit had long seemed a trifle slower when Beatrice's was not there to race it. Benedick cleared his throat and began what he came there to do.

"A flirtation we had, now years past; I do remember it still. Of what consequence it came to, very little. And yet, my mind does still alight there at the strangest times, like a sparrow who knows not where sits her nest."

Benedick looked at Beatrice's sleeping profile. "I'm certain you have no recollection of the matter. Or, if the memory be there, the whole matter is covered over in a layer of dust thicker than what blankets a Bible in a thief's household. But I remember."

On a small table by the window sat a cheery little vase of marigolds. Benedick considered them, and his mind went to another little flower, the one that had caused all this trouble, now locked in a storeroom, safely away from any innocents. The Suitor's Amaranth looked as pretty as it always had, nestled there among the armor, but in the dim light, Benedick had seen a small dash of silver pollen fall from the plant's stamen onto the petals. In the low light of the storeroom, the pollen had glinted there like powdered glass.

"Such an idea, that the selfsame God the Friar serves is the architect of such a fanciful design of misery. No, the Suitor's Amaranth bears such hallmarks as a plaything from the hoard of the fairy queen, or mayhaps a device of Olympia brought down to run havoc among mortal men by capricious immortal will."

Benedick finally took the chair by the side of Beatrice's bed. He sat down gingerly, half-expecting the lady to spring up and berate him for taking such liberties, but she remained impassive as ever on the bed. It did not suit her.

"Yea, though, it may perchance be in our favor that such fickle beings may design this predicament, for they lack perfection. A courtier of the Fair Court may be made a fool by sleight of hand, and the old pantheon tricked by honeyed and double-edged words. Shall such a deception be worked here again? Methinks that we two that did once play at a courtship may retain enough affection, feigned and unfeigned, floating about in the ether to work a decoy of true love against the watching eyes of fairy or god."

Benedick pulled the chair closer to her bedside, and took Beatrice's warm hand in his.

"What say you, Lady Beatrice? Can I produce a passing counterfeit?"

He kissed her.

In the heartbeats that followed, Beatrice did not wake. All that Benedick was was cast low.

"Pray, do not mark my words afore," he said, desperately now. "There is no counterfeit to be had, here. The panicked hare will say what he can to escape the claws of the eagle. But, my lady, I no longer want to escape you. At last there is only the truth."

Benedick held Beatrice's still hand and wished for a squeeze, wished for a word.

"I do love nothing in this world so well as you," he said.

Silence.

"...is not that strange?"

Silence again.

Benedick conjured Beatrice's voice in his memory; he could not guess what the Beatrice he knew would say to such a declaration, but he wanted to hear it. He leaned down again towards her lips, and when he pressed his against hers he was once more taken in by the warmth and scent of Beatrice.

He pulled back, but only some. Their breaths mixed together -- hers steady, his harsh with unshed tears. He searched her face for... anything. Any sign of the woman he knew, the woman he was in love with. His gaze swept her closed eyes, her brow, her nose, her neck.

All were lovely, but all were still. Benedick exhaled hard and leaned back in the chair. He closed his eyes and tried to think of nothing at all.

Beatrice's voice, not heard on this earth for a se'ennight, filled the room with her sleep-rasped words: "My lord Benedick? Wherefore art you in my bedchamber?" She seemed less scandalized and more deeply confused.

Benedick hovered over her with his mouth open, gazing at Beatrice stupidly. How was he to sum up the situation to her? How was he to explain _himself_ to her? Repeating his feelings aloud seemed suddenly a much more daunting prospect now that Beatrice was awake and looking at him.

"My lady Beatrice--" he began weakly.

Fortunately -- or unfortunately -- Benedick was saved from the impossible task of forming a coherent response by the clatter of a chair and the rattling of a knob. Obviously drawn by her cousin's voice, Hero burst back into the room, followed Margaret and a cluster of servants. She fell upon Beatrice, throwing her arms around her and kissing every place within reach.

"Please, my father! Oh, you must away to my father and entreat him come to our chamber!" Hero said to Margaret next to her. The woman hurried from the room. "And that it is a happy event!" Hero called after her.

More people pushed into the chamber to get their own glimpse of the lady who had returned from sleepy purgatory and to welcome her back to the land of the living. Benedick was jostled from his place by Beatrice's bed and began to be crowded out the door. He didn't fight it.

* * *

Hero, sweet and lovely as she was, could never be described as a sweet and lovely sleeper; a fact that Beatrice had discovered and begrudgingly accepted many years ago. She lied awake beside Hero now as Hero snored, tossed and turned, and unconsciously tried to steal the covers. But it was not Hero's now-familiar transgressions that kept Beatrice from sleep this night.

"But why should he kiss me," Beatrice whispered to the canopy above the bed. The day's events had been percolating in her brain since the door to her and Hero's chambers had closed for the night.

She found she was all at odds with herself. Despite sleeping the last week away in this very bed, her body was exhausted. But it was her mind that was causing her the most consternation, for it wouldn't stop spinning and worrying and puzzling.

And, most of all, it wouldn't stop wondering what on earth had possessed Benedick.

In the whirlwind of activity that had followed her awakening, Beatrice had been informed in bits and pieces of her own recent history. The strange flower, her unending sleep, the betrayals of Don Jon and Borrachio, her salvation in true love's kiss.

Ah, there was the thorn that caught at her clothing each time she wandered near that thought: true love's kiss.

Hero kicked out against Beatrice's legs in her sleep, interrupting her thoughts.

* * *

Hero's wedding, which had been delayed during the solemn time when no one was quite sure if there had been a death in the family or not, was suddenly back on again, and there was a flurry of activity throughout the house as had never been known before. That was how Beatrice found herself in her finest dress help her cousin put on her own beautiful wedding gown not two days after she arisen from not-quite-death. Time sped faster than a rabbit chased by hounds, and suddenly she was spotting Benedick's face in the gathered crowd in the chapel with absolutely nothing prepared to say to him, and no certainty of her own heart, which seemed to swing this way and that based on nothing more than the direction of the breeze at the moment.

Benedick had the strangest look in his eyes when she caught him looking at her while she stood by the altar. Was that love? True love? She didn't know, but she still had the niggling feeling that she'd slept through a courtship unawares.

But there was no time for that. For Hero and Count Claudio were already exchanging vows in front of a pleased Friar Frances.

Hero and Claudio kissed, then smiled, then walked back down the aisle with a spring in their step and their hands joined. Beatrice was happy for her cousin; Claudio seemed a fine enough man, and had not displayed whatever bad characteristics he might posses (yet) -- Beatrice figured that Hero had as good a chance at happiness as most women when entering into matrimony.

The crowd followed the couple outdoors, clapping and shouting. Beatrice made to follow them, but halfway down the aisle she turned to sit in a pew, the emotional tumult of the last few days finally catching up to her. She closed her eyes and breathed, letting her feelings drain out of her. For a few moments, Beatrice simply enjoyed the feeling of pleasant calm.

When Beatrice again opened her eyes, the church had emptied -- except for Benedick in the pew across the aisle looking right at her. Everything came rushing back.

"It seems your cousin does well," Benedick said. Such a prosaic observation from a man who often strove for more than that.

"Very well," Beatrice agreed. Oops, she guessed people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

"And you, lady?"

"Very well, too."

A pause. From somewhere up the lane outside, a song had broke out among the wedding party as musicians hired by her uncle started up a favorite tune. The muted strains filled the air between Beatrice and Benedick, even when their words would not.

"You kissed me," Beatrice blurted out, and even she did not know whether it was an accusation or not.

Benedick's mouth opened, then shut, then opened again. "Yes," he said, a note of panic in his voice. "No. O, what man can say what makes a kiss? Is e'ry touch of palms a handshake? Is e'ry tap of toes a dance? Such as it is with lips, that only a wise man with a stubb'd candle may divine a kiss from a smile from a whistle." Benedick finally stopped the river of nonsense words flowing from his mouth with a look of pure embarrassment on his face. He rubbed the back of his head and finished weakly: "Though sayeth not that I am not a wise man."

Against everything, Beatrice found that that last stupid bit of puffery blew away the remaining pieces of her resistance like straw in the wind. Her confidence, which had been absent some time, returned to her.

"Signior Benedick, I must confess that in this last pair of days some words have bandied themselves about my head, like a ditty. Mayhaps a nightingale whispered them to me in my long night of sleep. I find they please me, and I find I should like to repeat them to you, for the meaning doth apply. Shall you hear them, my lord?"

"Yea, Lady Beatrice," he nearly whispered.

"'I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is not that strange?'"

"Aye, exceedingly strange." And Benedick crossed the aisle in two long steps and took Beatrice's face in his hands and kissed her with some fervor.

Beatrice kissed back, and it wasn't until the distant wedding party broke into cheering and a new jaunty tune that they broke apart, breathing quickly.

"O," said Beatrice, now realizing that she had been gone from her own cousin's wedding celebration for quite some time. "I fear that we shall miss the dancing."

"If thou wilt be mine, Beatrice, I lack fear of missing anything."

They ran back to the villa to the tune of pipers. If there were onlookers to see them so happy in the fields and paths of Messina, one might say it was a chase, another might say it was a dance.

**Author's Note:**

> _Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,_  
And Phoebus 'gins arise,  
His steeds to water at those springs  
On chaliced flowers that lies;  
And winking Mary-buds begin  
To ope their golden eyes:  
With every thing that pretty is,  
My lady sweet, arise:  
Arise, arise.
> 
> Cymbeline, Act 2, Scene 2


End file.
